


Out

by MiteyMidget



Series: Reunion 'verse [5]
Category: Drake & Josh
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-14
Updated: 2017-05-14
Packaged: 2018-10-31 19:36:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,483
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10906065
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MiteyMidget/pseuds/MiteyMidget
Summary: Summary: AU, Future fic. The world finds out about them on a Tuesday





	Out

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted to LJ in August of 2008. Beta credit goes to amberdowny.

The world finds out about them on a Tuesday. Just a plain old boring Tuesday. Like any other Tuesday, Josh gets up, gets dressed and goes to work. Where he’s accosted by half the teaching staff and a good number of students, all wanting to know if it was true. Is he really secretly dating Drake Parker?

By noon there are at least a dozen news vans parked just off campus, reporters craning around, trying to get a shot of him within the school. It’s only another hour before Josh is called into a meeting with the principal and asked, not unkindly, to please leave. It’s for the safety of the students. They shouldn’t be exposed to this kind of thing.

The drive home is torture, his mind whirling with too many thoughts to pay much mind to the press still hounding his steps. Why hadn’t he seen this coming? It was inevitable, right? He and Drake aren’t exactly paragons of discretion. That they’ve been able to hide it from the media this long is something of a miracle, all things considered.

But it’s come as this huge, resounding shock. If he had thought about it, he doesn’t think he’d have figured on something this huge. Maybe a few reporters, but not this circus, the absolute chaos. It’s disrupting his neat, tidied life in a way that just having Drake in it never has before. 

Pulling into the parking lot of his apartment complex, he tries Drake’s cell again and gets a busy signal.

It makes him unaccountably angry with Drake, that he could be talking to someone else while Josh is dealing with this. He ignores the rational part of his mind that tells him that Drake’s probably facing the same thing on his end. That it’s not Drake’s fault that any of this is happening than it is Josh’s.

Fuelled by his frustration, Josh pushes through the mob of reporters camped out in front of his building, refusing to answer any of their questions even as microphones and hand-held tape recorders are pushed into his face. He has a hard time keeping them from following him when he enters the building. Someone goes as far as to jam their foot in the door as he tries to shut it.

A handful of people are even camped out right at his apartment, leaning up against the walls in the hallway, no doubt let in by one of the other tenants. Josh ignores them, too, even as the anger builds in him.

He’s all too happy to slam the door shut behind him. It only muffles the sound of their voices. After that he’s on the phone with the police department. They should be able to do something with the crowd outside. It has to be disturbing his neighbours, as well.

When he tries Drake’s cell again it finally rings through. There’s handful of rings before Drake picks up with a hesitant, “Josh?”

“Drake,” Josh says evenly. “Your phone’s been busy all day.”

“Uh, yeah.” Drake laughs, and it sounds nervous. “I’ve been on the line with my manager. About the papers this morning. We’ve been trying to figure out a way to deal with this. And then my mom called…”

“And you didn’t think to call me?”

“I did!” Drake protests. “I did think to call you, but every time I’d get off the phone someone else would call and I’d be on the phone for another hour or two. My manager, my sister and my mother all in one day, Josh. That’s enough to throw any man off his game.”

Josh snorts. “I was asked to leave work, Drake! I was asked to leave work because of the camera crews outside. There are dozens of them out there on my lawn and you’ve been thrown off your game by a few phone calls?”

When Drake responds Josh can practically hear the wince in his voice. “Sorry. Sorry. Just—I’m really sorry, Josh.”

Abruptly, the anger leaves him. Drake sounds sincere, he really does, and Josh doesn’t want to fight. He’s mad and frustrated, but mostly at the people outside and at the principal of the school for not being able to better stand up for a member of his faculty. Drake’s an easy target for Josh to vent at and he feels a tug of regret that it had been his first reaction in this situation.

“No,” he says, rubbing at his forehead. “No, I’m sorry. I snapped at you. I’m always doing that; overreacting.”

“We’ve just been outed to the entire world, Josh. If anything, this is an under-reaction.”

“And yet you seem calm about it,” Josh says, a bit enviously. “You’re not freaking out.”

Drake laughs. “Like hell I’m not. You should have seen me first thing this morning. Mike, that’s my manager, woke me out of a sound sleep to give me the news. Then my sister called to ‘congratulate’ me for finding someone stupid enough to actually fall for my charms long term. My mom was the worst, I think. Do you know, I hadn’t gotten the chance to tell her about us yet?”

“What?! Drake, I thought you said you were working on that!”

“I was,” Drake says. “I was working up to it. It just never came up. She was pretty angry that she had to find out about it in the papers.”

“I can’t imagine why,” Josh drawls sarcastically. It seems to go completely over Drake’s head as he carries on blithely.

“I know! I mean, I was trying, right? It’s not my fault neither of us noticed that photographer.” Here he seemed to give himself a mental headshake. “Anyways, you think getting kicked out of school is bad, well, you’ve never seen bad until you’ve had a lecture from my mother. She went on and on about how she’d raised me better than to keep things from her and how I should known better than to hide something this big from the press and how I accidentally wrecked my trike with a hammer when I was three. Oh, and she wants to meet you this Saturday.”

It takes a few moments for Josh’s brain to catch up with what Drake’s just told him, but when it does he can feel his heart stutter to a stop and his palms start to go clammy. Drake’s mother. Drake’s mother wants to meet him. Oh god.

“Th-this Saturday?” Josh asks dazedly. “Like, the Saturday that follows Friday? That Saturday?”

“I’m pretty sure that all Saturdays follow Friday.”

“Oh, but Drake, it’s so sudden. Shouldn’t I have more time to prepare?” Josh looks down at himself, at his plain suit and his tie with the cartoon print. He runs a hand through hair that probably looks like it hasn’t seen a comb in about a month. Yeah, he’s going to need a lot of preparation. 

Drake doesn’t seem to understand. “What? Josh, it’s just my mom. She’s already impressed. Besides, I thought parents always love you?”

“That was before I was the seducer that lured her supposedly straight son down the path of homosexuality!”

“Dude, seriously? ‘The path of homosexuality?’ And if there’s anyone doing the luring in this relationship, it’s me.”

“Don’t try to distract me, Drake!” Josh commands, even as he feels himself being distracted. Such weakness… He plows forward. “She’s your mother Drake! It’s a big deal, piled up on top of having our picture splashed across almost every tabloid across the country. I think I have a right to feel overwhelmed.”

“I’m taking care of it. Don’t worry so much. I’ve got a publicist and a manager and an entire record label working on this. I promise, we’ll figure it out. Soon enough some other star will do something even more scandalous than holding hands with their date and we’ll be out of the limelight.”

“What about your mother?" Josh asks stubbornly.

On this Drake refuses to budge. “We’re still going to dinner. Agreeing to this is the only way I could get her to stop yelling at me. Besides, you don’t want to disappoint her, do you?”

“That’s a trick question, right? Of course I don’t want to disappoint your mother! What kind of person would I be if I did?”

“Great! I’ll let her know that you agreed. Hey, now that you’re meeting my mom, what about your dad? Has he seen the papers yet?

“Nnno…. Dad!” Josh hops up to his feet, pacing back and forth with his heart pounding, his phone held in a vice like grip. “My dad. Oh god, I never even thought about him! All of this worrying about your mom and I should have, but it completely slipped my mind. I am a horrible son!”

“Calm down there, buddy,” Drake soothes, or tries to. “I think you’ve earned the right to be a little bit distracted. It doesn’t make you a bad son. I mean, if you’ve already told him about us, the paper shouldn’t come as that big a shock, right?”

Josh winces. “Uh, about that…”

“About what? Josh, you did tell your dad about us, didn’t you?”

“I… told him I was with someone and that it was serious.”

“Josh!” Drake shouts, all righteous indignation. “This entire time you’ve been getting on my case about telling my mom and you hadn’t told your dad, either? That’s low, Josh. Really low.”

“To borrow your earlier defence, ‘It never came up.’”

“No, no, nononono, no. You’re not getting off that easily. You’ve really wounded me Josh, letting me think you’d told your dad. I think you owe me. You owe me big time.”

“How’s that?” Josh asks skeptically. “You never told you mom, I never told my dad. I’d say we’re about even.”

Drake actually laughs, gleefully. “Ha! That’s where you’re wrong. You let me think your dad already knew. You tried to guilt trip me into telling Mom. So, you owe me.”

Okay. Point.

Josh moves over to his window, peering out to see the police trying to clear out the rabble on the front lawn. Watching them leave, Josh feels like a weight’s been lifted. He smiles.

“Fine. I owe you.”

“Great. Awesome.” Josh can hear the gloating through the phone. “You’ll come to dinner on Saturday and you’ll have to come good on that. No take backs.”

“Sure,” Josh agrees fondly, shaking his head. Drake sounds like a kid in a candy store, not like someone who’s just had their life turned upside down. He’s taking this media thing in stride, like it’s just another hurdle to overcome and it was Josh’s reaction that had been the mountain obstructing his path. Now that Josh is calm he’s relaxed, playful.

It’s more than a little boggling. Drake is this big name in the entertainment industry and if this turns out to be bad publicity it could mean the end to his career, but that doesn’t even seem to rate on Drake’s to worry about list. It’s boggling and it’s humbling and more than a little flattering.

Josh has known for a while that Drake cares for him, that it maybe even goes deeper than that, but he’d never quite considered what that really means. Music is Drake’s everything, or at least that’s kind of what Josh has always assumed. To have their relationship take priority sends a burst of warmth through him.

“I’ll meet your mom,” Josh says, eyes gone a little misty. “And I’ll call Dad just as soon as we’re done.”

“I’d say don’t if you don’t think it’s the right time, but I think the decision’s pretty much out of our hands,” Drake says, and he actually sounds regretful, like he’d let Josh get away with it if it was in his power to do so.

“No,” Josh sighs. “I should have done this a while ago. If we’d just been honest to start with we wouldn’t be in this mess.”

“The parents mess or the mess with the dozens of reporters outside?”

“Parents, obviously. We’d have been stuck with the reporters either way. Is it always like this for you, by the way?”

“Nah,” Drake says, and Josh can hear the shrug in his voice. “I’m not Britney Spears. Mostly they just wait around to see who I show up to parties with and then write about what we’re wearing.”

“Right.” Somehow Josh thinks that Drake is trivializing it a little. Or a lot.

Drake huffs at Josh’s disbelieving tone, but doesn’t argue. “Okay. So, I’m going to say goodbye now. There’s still some things I need to take care of on this end, but I’ll see you Friday night, okay?”

“Friday night,” Josh agrees.

“And you’ll tell me if things don’t clear up at work right? I know this lawyer who could-“

“Drake, I think I can handle work without making it a legal matter.”

“Okay, okay. I’ll let you handle it,” Drake says. “It’s just, I know this is my fault, okay? I want you to know that I want to help.”

“Drake, this is not your fault,” Josh says and then continues on as Drake tries to protest. “This isn’t your fault any more than it is mine. You didn’t take those pictures and you certainly didn’t sell them to the paper that published them. If we let this come between us, then we let them win. I’m not letting them win, Drake.”

“When you put it that way…” Drake grumbles, but he’s smiling. Josh can tell, even over the phone.

“I’ll let you go now. Just don’t forget what I just said.”

“Don’t let them win. I got it.”

“Good. Now I’ll let you go. See you Friday.”

“See you,” Drake says, and then ends the call. 

Josh disconnects his own phone and slumps back onto the couch, his fingers already dialing his father’s number. No, he’s really not going to let anyone else win this but him and Drake.

 

Extra: So, as a bit of an easter egg here I actually wrote an excerpt for an article that never made it into the fic. Since I got a friend of mine who's a journalist-in-training to help me with it I didn't want it to go to waste. Now I'm tagging it onto the end here. Hope you guys like it.

'Musician Drake Parker shocked fans earlier this year when he showed up stag to a red carpet event. Parker, a well known ladies man, laughed it off, but the incident has left some fans wondering over the man’s current relationship status in the months since. Photographs have recently surfaced that could prove some of the speculation. It's not the what that's set so many tongues wagging so much as the who. Sources have come forward to confirm that Parker's partner in the photographs is 28 year-old middle school teacher Josh Nichols of San Diego.'


End file.
